


this pain would(n't) be for evermore

by theriveroflight



Category: National Treasure (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory, The Author Regrets Everything, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28061088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: Everyone just assumes about Riley, and they're right in some ways and wrong in others, so he doesn't correct them.
Relationships: Abigail Chase/Benjamin Franklin Gates/Riley Poole, Riley Poole/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	this pain would(n't) be for evermore

**Author's Note:**

> To the 21 people currently subscribed to my AO3 profile, I apologize for this. Please don't unsubscribe, this is the first and last time I'm writing for this fandom most likely. But if you do have Disney+ or access to a library, I would suggest checking out these movies. They're really fun to watch, in my opinion. Be warned for minor spoilers for both movies if you decide to read anyways.
> 
> To people actually looking for NT fanfiction: Hello! Don't expect me to write any more of this. So. fun fact -- I'm about as old as the first NT movie. Recently rewatched them with my parents (first viewing was somewhere between 10 and 12, I believe) and I just had bits of prose stuck in my head. I mostly write for cartoon fandoms at the moment. Also, is this a small fandom, or is all the fanfiction on other sites (and should I go back to trawling through LiveJournal)?
> 
> Warnings: transphobia (the T slur is used in paragraph 6, if you want to skip - that is the only instance of its use, but keep in mind the time period), non-malicious misgendering, sex bits mentioned in the context of reassignment surgery, a bit of swearing
> 
> Timeline: I'm taking the year of film release as the year in-universe. Riley is born in 1980, making him around 24 during the events of the first movie. Ben is two years older, and Abigail is a year older than Ben, so if you're doing math that means Abigail is three years older than Riley. No idea what canon has to say on this.
> 
> Title from "evermore" by Taylor Swift.

Riley May Poole is born, and everyone coos over a newborn baby, dressed in pink like a proper little girl, or something like that.

He's seen the pictures. Most of the ones where he looks happy is ones where he isn't wearing a skirt or a dress. It isn't that he has anything against wearing them as a _concept,_ but that means that people stop perceiving him as a boy. Being perceived as a girl bothers him more than anything else, so as soon as he can say it he cuts his hair short and that helps a little bit. He develops friendships with girls and guys - it doesn't really matter. But it is the 80s, and he doesn't quite feel safe telling anyone, but if people mistake him for a dude he never corrects them, and the messy hairstyle and the way he dresses is almost convincing enough - even his voice is excused, and the other kids can't tell most of the time. He even manages to get out of wearing dresses to picture day when he's in 3rd grade, and not enough time has passed for everyone to know. It fades into the background of perpetual memory, and he sneaks away and burns the picture-day pictures and the ones where he isn't doing the right thing. Being the right him. He says his middle name starts with M and he lets them assume Michael or something. Everything just requires his middle initial, after all, not his full middle name.

The city is a forgiving place, more prone to the sweeps of change. More likely to allow him to be as he is. He knows it'll be soon. That he can tell them soon.

He has a nervous breakdown in a bra shop, because he can't hide. He can't pretend he's someone else. It isn't...a lot, but enough where they need to be supported.

He's 14, and he isn't ready to say that he's really a boy, that everyone questioned why the education on puberty had put him with the girls, why the one geeky guy got lumped in with the wrong group.

(One person calls him a tranny. He doesn't know what that means, but he flinches and doesn't tell anyone about it, but everyone knows it anyways. It spreads quickly that he was called a tranny, and he doesn't know what it means at first, but...he learns all too quickly.)

He's 14, and it's 1994. He just wears his baggiest things to school, and the illusion remains in place.

Sometimes the teachers take him aside, ask if he's alright after he keeps getting treated like a guy.

"It isn't being treated like a man that's the problem." He drops his voice a little, almost as if to press the point. "I know who I am."

"I've stood by and watched you get mistreated long enough, young lady. I won't let a misconception interfere with your education if they continue to insult you like this."

"The true insult is you calling me 'young lady.'"

The teacher lets out a small  _ tsk _ . "Have you told your parents about this?"

He shrugs. "I've never felt the need to tell, per se. Nobody has ever asked. But I'm getting too old now for my voice to fly under the radar."

"Kid, if you want help with them, you can always ask me." Wait, what? "I support all my students, and I won't make the same mistake again, Mr. Poole."

That is more validating than anything else he could hear.

His guy friends talk about girls, and he sees the appeal in some of them. They've managed to forget the weirdness again. He doesn't agree that meanness is hot, so he isn't a fan of the cheerleaders they all seem to want to be with.

He passes a few comments, and when they ask him he says that he doesn't really like anyone, but he does think Jennifer Brown is kinda hot. They all murmur in agreement and when the gathering is broken up by some overbearing schoolteacher, one of the guys comes up to him.

"You're really admirable, you know," he says, "l like you a lot."

Riley snorts and looks at him. Oh, that's…Matthew, he thinks, but he prefers Matt.

"Really," Riley drawls.

"I think you're really cool, dude, and I know we'd have to keep it a secret…but I don't know. Are you into it?"

Riley's never thought about anyone other than the various girls before, but he thinks he could be into it. Into the other man standing in front of him. "I like both."

"Good." Matt kisses him, and maybe Riley gets why people chase after this. Why they look for it.

But he still needs to tell him the secret, buried by accident and assumption. Before Matt finds out in a way that will be much, much worse.

He's never really had to correct the assumption before. But it's important.

* * *

It goes surprisingly well, even when Matt later admits that when Riley first came out to him he thought about proposing that they go public but with Riley as a girl. And he knows he couldn't do that. Even if they did all just assume, they're  _ right,  _ and Riley at this point can't bear to correct them. The only people left are his family and various authorities he's filled out forms for before. People seem to have forgotten how he used to be insulted.

And when he and Matt break up because they both realized their relationship was fading, he fears, but no one is told. He keeps his friends away from his parents and his house and it's  _ fine.  _ It'll remain fine.

All the paperwork requires him to misidentify himself. So he doesn't start driving officially like everyone else does, refuses to get a job.

He's 16. He should be able to do this. But he  _ can't.  _ And he knows he'll have to pay for his own shit soon, but he isn't planning on doping much with his life. He just wants to live as the person that he is.

And the person that he is, according to the internet, is  _ transgender.  _ Or something like that. Knowing that people like him exist is exciting. Riley has always felt alone, but he isn't. He's not alone, he isn't the only person like him. He's not crazy for wanting to live like this.

That means that he can have the courage to come out to his parents. Tell them, in the hope of being able to legally…

Well, he's been working on his hacking skills. He could always change it like that, but it would be too easy.

Surgery is expensive, by all the research he's done. Legal changes require that, but maybe that'll change, or maybe his circumstances will.

He comes out to his parents, and they don't react badly. It's confusing for them, but simultaneously makes a lot of sense, as they tell him. They've heard a few teachers slip up at conferences when he was younger, the insistence on short hair, the clothing style.

They ask him if he wants to change his name, if he needs anything, and he takes a deep breath and spreads out the printings of all the research he's done. He doesn't need to change his name. He's Riley, no matter what.

He tells them that. They schedule him an appointment with a therapist - it's not to persuade him to turn back, but to move forward. He told them that he's never thought of himself as female, and they believe him. He's astounded at how easily they take this, but he remembers his mother bemoaning that she had a daughter instead of a son. Funny how things turn out sometimes.

* * *

He starts physically transitioning when he's 17. It's just hormonal treatments, but it still feels like a victory with each thing that changes. He doesn't apply to anywhere big, because those require him to be wrong, and so he ends up at the local community college. Everyone tells him he's too smart for it, that he should go for something bigger, but Riley has never wanted anything bigger besides the ability to live as himself.

He gets top surgery when he's 20, with the support of his parents and the endocrinologist and everyone else involved.

He's never wanted anything more than to be able to live as himself, but what comes next when he can?

He doesn't have to wonder anymore when he meets Ben Gates.

Ben's the most brilliant person Riley has ever met, without a doubt. Nobody ever doubts that Riley is male, anymore, and Ben spots him sitting on a park bench using his laptop to try and find somewhere to eat today. He moved out when he got his degree, but now he's jobless and homeless, and he bets that Ben can tell that he was vulnerable.

But even though he thinks Ben is crazy for searching for a treasure, he's not one to pass up the possibility of that much money. That's enough to get what's necessary to get the surgery and finally change the marker on his...well, everything. And he'll have more after that, too, even split among the amount of people that are accompanying them.

And then they find the  _ Charlotte  _ in the Arctic, and it blows up in their faces.

Literally.

He doesn't feel the need to tell Ben that he's trans. Because it doesn't matter, not when it could make him think less of Riley. When they're friends, and he doesn't want to jeopardize that in any way.

Telling is always a sharply calculated risk, and Riley has always been the math-oriented one of the group.

(They balance each other, Riley's superiority at math and knowledge in technology filling in the gaps where Ben's expansive knowledge of history doesn't cover.)

He just knows that something is going wrong when they go to steal the Declaration of Independence, but they wouldn't be nearly as successful if he walked out like everyone else did.

Maybe it means something. It probably doesn't.

* * *

It does go wrong, more monumentally than anything ever could. And Ben drags the poor professor into being a fugitive with them.

But they find it. They manage to find the treasure, and he gets his one percent. As much as he complains about being offered 10% and Ben refusing, one percent of 10 billion is still 100 million, enough to get everything he wants and more.

He finally gets the operation, making him free to change the marker on his birth certificate and everywhere else. It was…longer than he would have liked to get it, but he's 24 and he's finally able to live freely as himself.

(The Ferrari is used as a sign to show something obvious with the money. He can't exactly tell Ben and Abigail that he used it to get operated on, because there were no visible changes to him, and he doesn't exactly want to show them his dick.)

(Well, okay, he kind of does, but hopefully in a sexier context than "what was operated on.")

He writes a book, and he just tells about the treasure. And some other things, but it isn't quite a memoir. It doesn't start at the beginning, in the city where he grew up being correctly mistaken? for a boy.

And he drifts away from Abigail and Ben. They're a couple, and he isn't a part of them. He needs to find what he wants for himself, and maybe that is them but at the same time, maybe it isn't.

So he tours for his book, going around bookstores looking for someone that recognizes him. The name "Riley Poole" isn't as well known as "Ben Gates" or even "Abigail Chase," but he hopes to make a name for himself anyways. Most of the people in the bookstores don't recognize him, but he still tries to explain.

And he ends up back where he started, Washington D.C. Three years to go all the way around.

(He's had some contact with them in between - he hasn't entirely let go, and indulges in some Skype calls and long text threads that start to drift away as the days add up.)

Ben finds him walking around, trying to get back his Ferrari seized for tax evasion.

It's just...strange, because tax evasion of all things is probably the least of his crimes, all things considered.

And he gets roped into something else. Really, he lets Ben drag him in with fake disappointment on his face. He might be one of the few that can persuade Ben away from a path he wants to take, but he doesn't.

Because he's missed this.

Because Riley misses Ben.

(He tiptoes closer to the truth.)

And they break into Abigail's house, because she and Ben broke up (Riley thought they were perfect, the only ones who could match each other in brilliance, but whatever), and she calls them out on their bullshit and Ben manages somehow to persuade her to come with, come along on the mission.

Riley can tell she still thinks that Ben is crazy, but in the kind of charming way that sweeps them up in it too. Ben has a special kind of charisma that could persuade almost anyone to follow.

Riley is the techie, nothing else. But they pull through to both figure out the truth and also find the treasure, as a bonus.

He doesn't need it, really. He's gotten what he wants.

(Maybe if he tries hard enough he can convince himself of that.)

Abigail talks to him more, perhaps sensing some kind of kindred spirit. He doesn't know what to make of it, really. What sort of companionship could she find in him? What do they have in common besides Ben?

That must be it. But they talk about other things, too, and he finds himself liking her once they actually get to talk to each other.

Ben is busy a lot, so they avoid falling apart like last time with dinner and he keeps Abigail company in their too-big house and sometimes accompanies Ben to some presentation because Ben's always wanted Riley with him because they're treasure hunting partners and he apparently deserves credit too.

Plus, if Ben and Abigail's relationship is suffering, he can help both of them out. He loves…he loves them too much to let their relationship fall apart.

Since when was it  _ them?  _ He doesn't know. He doesn't know when they pulled him into their orbit, but he's there now, and honestly he wouldn't have it any other way.

He ends up telling Abigail first, the words spilling out over a couple glasses of wine and dinner.

"I wasn't actually born like this, you know," gesturing at himself.

She's a little off-kilter from the alcohol too, cocking her head to the side. "Well, of course, we all start off as babies."

"No shit," he grumbles. "I meant that the doctor called me a girl when I was born."

"Ah." She nods. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I dunno," he says, "just felt like the right time."

"I'm flattered that you trust me enough to tell, but really, I wouldn't have needed to know. I've never seen you as anything other than male."

He shrugs. "No one can really tell, you know, and I got all the surgeries. To everyone else, I am, and that's everything I've wanted to be. The bits not matching with the outward stuff made it hard to find people, and now that they match as well as they can, I just don't really want to anymore."

He can see Abigail's posture become less relaxed. Her posture is pretty much always perfect but somehow it manages to stiffen a little more.

"Thank you for telling me." She sounds hesitant, almost. "Does Ben know?"

"Haven't felt the need to tell anyone since my parents. Everyone just kind of…assumed I'm a dude, and they were right, so it never mattered."

"Except when it does…"

What is Abigail thinking? Sometimes he wishes he could see inside her mind - inside both of their minds, really, it must be interesting.

"I mean, back in high school I had a boyfriend that I told, and I told my parents so they could help me transition, but I mean, I have a semi-functioning dick now, no need for that. I mean, I wasn't really planning on being with anyone anyways."

"Married to the job?" she quips, and he smiles at her.

"A little," he confesses, but most of the truth is that he doesn't think anyone he ever finds will live up to the people he's already found.

He doesn't say that, though, and goes back to eating.

"Are you planning on telling him, since you told me?" she asks.

"I'm drunk," he says, "wouldn't even be trying otherwise."

"Not enough for it to be an accident." And she's right, it isn't quite enough, but the combination of it and uninhibited trust makes it easy.

"Maybe," he answers, getting back to the question. "If I tell, it won't be planned, it'll be something like this."

She bites her lip (which is…strangely attractive, if he wanted to be honest). "I'm not going to tell. It's your story."

And they finish their dinner in a companionable silence.

* * *

He doesn't get Ben alone for a while, not that he really  _ cares _ about that. Still, his conversation with Abigail remains in his head, and he can't help but think about telling Ben. The first person that mattered to him in far too long, and he can't even muster the words to tell the truth? Well, it isn't really the truth anymore, and he doesn't need to say it, but…he finds that he wants to.

It doesn't  _ need  _ to be said, really.

The next thing Ben needs him for is a talk. It's just the two of them, and there's no greater purpose to it, so they go get burgers.

"You know what I recently realized?"

"What is it." Riley's tempted to roll his eyes, but he doesn't.

"You're around us more often than not," he starts, "and we have plenty of room in our house."

"You want me to…move in?" he asks.

"Exactly." Ben slides a key across the table. A house key. "It was Abigail's idea, but both of us want this. I enjoy having you around."

"I", not "we."

Riley takes the key and slides it onto his keychain. "I have something I should probably say, too."

"Oh?"

"I used some of the money to get surgery."

"I already knew. I saw your driver's license before." Riley frowns. "I never thought you were deceiving me. Figured you were trying to do something about it, and you did."

"How do you always know what's up?" He can't help but break into a smile.

"It's my job to have things figured out, Riley."

He shakes his head, but he's still smiling, equal parts disbelief and happiness.

"I'm glad you're moving in." Riley looks up from his fries. "It isn't the same without you around. The three of us work."

"You think so?"

"I  _ know  _ it."

* * *

Things move faster after he moves in. Really, it's all in reverse. Normally the living together part comes  _ after  _ the confession of feelings, but when have they ever been conventional?

Hell, three people all together isn't conventional, either. He doesn't need to stick to convention anymore.

They support each other, in multiple ways, and the tension breaks in a calm way - it isn't a sudden flood, but gradual cracks in their actions, in how Abigail greets them both with the same smile in the morning, in how they grip each other tight in hugs, in how they cling to each other on the couch in the living room despite there being plenty of room.

And he finds himself waking up in the same bed as them one morning (he fell asleep early, if he recalls, and he thinks he remembers the sensation of being carried), with a sleepy "I love you" from Ben, and he and Abigail respond in unison "Love you too." It's that simple.

It should feel scary. But it's not.

Not at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone reading this for sticking through. Please leave a kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed, and if you have any recs _please_ forward to me in comments or message my Tumblr @alto-tenure, or something.


End file.
